Discussion of public health and health care policy, from a public health perspective. The U.S. spends more on medical services than any other country, but we get less for it. Major reasons include lack of universal access, unequal treatment, and underinvestment in public health and social welfare. We will critically examine the economics, politics and sociology of health and illness in the U.S. and the world.

Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Deep and not so deep doo doo

As I noted a couple of days ago, the Penn State executives who decided not to report Jerry Sandusky to the authorities are in it deep enough they're breathing with a snorkel. They're unemployed and unemployable, two of them are facing criminal charges, and former PSU president Graham Spanier may also be prosecuted. All three of them are looking forward to being sued for their back teeth. (No surprise they aren't cooperating with the Louis Freeh investigation. Spanier is even suing to try to obstruct it. Don't expect a whitewash from Freeh, but do expect something close to it -- a pale beige at best. PSU is paying for his investigation and they aren't paying him to write a roadmap for litigants. But I digress.)

Contrast this with even wealthier and yet more evil executives at GlaxoSmithKline. They didn't just look the other way while somebody raped a couple of dozen boys. They conspired actively, elaborately, over years, to illegally foist drugs on tens of thousands of children that caused them untold harm; and they ripped off millions of adults as well by selling a drug -- which has serious side effects -- for purposes for which it is useless.

Well, the company is paying a $3 billion fine, which yeah, most people would consider a lot of money. But I expect it's less than the profit they made from the scheme -- it's just a cost of doing business. But guess what? The people who did this committed crimes more egregious than the crimes of Jerry Sandusky, by orders of magnitude, if you go by the number of people they harmed. Some likely died. Yet nobody will be prosecuted. They haven't lost their jobs either. I expect they all got bonuses.

They marketed Welbutrin, actually, for weight loss, the treatment of sexual dysfunction, substance addictions and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It has not been shown to be safe and effective for those purposes.

Thanks for the response. Obviously, there are differences between "worthless" and "not shown to be safe/effective" and "not approved for this indication." Not sure where Welbutrin was on this spectrum. As for Paxil, the FDA offers companies an incentive to study such drugs in pediatric populations, so I bet they did it, I just don't know the result.